Interview with Founder of Geekcorps

cynical writes "WorldChanging has a new interview up with Ethan Zuckerman, founder of Geekcorps, fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and editor of BlogAfrica, the best source of access to African bloggers around. Zuckerman talks about the growing role of blogging in the developing world, fighting corruption and censorship online, the emerging world of "social source software," and a lot more. It's a long, wide-ranging conversation; clearly, this guy is thinking big about the power of the web, especially outside the United States."

Comments

Third world blogs

[kundor]

I'd think that the problem with using the internet to combat censorship and corruption is that the censored and oppressed people are precisely those without internet access. Those who have it are already in the privileged classes.

Re:Third world blogs

[kundor]

How many public libraries are there in Africa?

How many public libraries are in the African boondocks?

How many of those libraries have internet access?

I think you'll find the number is vanishingly small.

Re:Third world blogs

[MoralHazard]

First of all, RTFA. They're seeking to BRING the internet to the underprivileged in countries that are least likely to get it otherwise. That's the whole point.

Second of all, it's not like censorship and oppression uniquely affect the poorest of the poor. There's a thing called the "middle class", or perhaps "Bourgeoisie" (if you're that kind of cat). Everybody who isn't politically/economically elite can suffer from these kinds of things. Take a look at China: the Great Firewall blocks the traffic of the wage-slave and entrepreneur alike.

And yes, it's more likely that those in the middle class will have the resources, education, perspective, and political voice to resist censorship on their own, but that's a tendency, not a binary situation.

Besides, tools like these don't magically make oppressive governments stop being evil--the tools have to be applied to the problem by motivated actors. It turns out (despite what Marx thought) that the middle class is the source of a hell of a lot more political resistance to government than the poor.* This isn't a denigration of the poor--it's just an observed fact of social change movements around the world in the last 50 years. So the logic follows that giving tools to fight oppression to the middle class permits them to carry the fight for everybody.

* Personally, I chalk this up to the fact that the line between the middle class and the workers that Marx noticed has blurred and become a really big, fat zone. A huge portion of the American/European middle class are wage-earners, which would make them "workers" according to Marxist thought. But they also own a substantial amount of property (houses, cars, boats, bank accounts, investments), which would make them capitalists. Funny old world we live in, isn't it?

Re:Third world blogs

[kalidasa]

Let's put it this way. Ok, that's the extreme: and the fact that someone came up with such a service shows how hard librarians work to service their public, especially when there are severe economic hardships.

concusion

[virtualone]

at the end of TFI he asks you to reply if you are interested in transferring a large amount of money out of namibia. you wil get your fair share, for sure.

digital divide

[Chuck Bucket]

to make a level playing field for all to participate on the Internet, we must defeat the "digital divide". I think with good geeks like this, armed with a bevy of OSS, this will be accomplished.

it's literally giving Power To The People - and not just the elite.

call me a socialist, call me a communist, call me a rainy day anarchist, just don't call me late for dinner.

CB

the world-wide-web as a tool

[tobi-wan-kenobi]

first: i admit to not having read the whole article, since it really is a bit long for the hour. second: his notion about "social source" software is really interesting. commonly, the wide-spread use of the internet is said to diminuish face-to-face contact between people. the other side that often is neglected is demonstrated by this article: the internet can also be used to enable communication, as a means for a war against "corruption" and especially "censorship". what people often forget is that, no matter how big, the internet still is nothing more than a tool. and most tools do not tend to be either "good" or "bad", but achieve their quality by the way they are used. this is an excellent demonstration on how to do it right. my 2 pence, n'tn more

The first time

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

You know, this is the first time I've ever seen what could be called a viable use for blogs. The idea of posting your day to day affairs, life and opinions on the web for any stranger to see strikes me as being at best social networking, at worst repulsively narcissistic.

However using blogs to speak out against corrupt regimes etc. does seem to fill a niche that needed filling (although I don't see how it differs greatly from setting up a protest website). It gives an insight into the day to day life of a person living under such conditions, which we would otherwise not have. Its one of the reasons I enjoy chatrooms so much-where else can you get a real insight into the lives and cultures of people hal a world away?

Re:The first time

[proj_2501]

Actually, it really only matters for interesting WRITERS.

There are quite a few people I know who can make even the banal sound exotic, and those who lead interesting lives while only publishing sentences.

Hypocrite

[mc6809e]

EZ says: You've actually just identified the essential problem of free market journalism. In free market journalism you're allowed to print whatever stories your audience wants to read.

Oh, gee, how terrible that people decide for themselves what stories they want to write and what stories they want to read.

Ever hear of freedom of the press?

Re:Hypocrite

[thelexx]

Reading that line in context leaves me with the clear impression that it is pandering and a lack of a worldly view on the part of the (presumably US) press that he has a problem with. Not the basic idea of a free press. He simply chose a relatively poor way of articulating it.

Re:Hypocrite

[david.given]

Oh, gee, how terrible that people decide for themselves what stories they want to write and what stories they want to read.

It's a pity there isn't a -1, Missed The Point.

If people only read what they want to read, they'll never hear about anything that they don't want to read --- but should be reading. Let's say your country is having a war. It's going badly. Do people want to hear about yet another messy encounter where far too many people died on both sides with no actual result? Hell, no. They'd much rather read about heroic rescues of photogenic young soldiers, and then skip on to the sport pages. The result? They end up either not knowing about what's going on, or not caring, or both. It's good for people to have their world upset every so often, regardless of what they want.

Ever hear of freedom of the press?

Yes. It means that journalists are allowed to print anything that they think the audience should know about, which is totally different.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Bridging the gap

[H_Fisher]

(From the article:)

We haven't had our first developing world A-list blogger yet. We haven't even seen anyone in the West who writes primarily, or even frequently, about developing world issues developing the kind of reputation that would help them get the word out on crises[...]

I wonder if any American or European agencies concerned with human rights issues, stopping censorship, etc. could encourage people in "developing" nations to speak out by providing space, publicity (a Slashdot-like list of links to individuals' blogs), or other efforts to help people tell their stories?

I'm not a blogger because most of the ones I've seen are (a) long-winded political rants or (b) personal drama; I'd much rather see, and tell others about, the world events we aren't seeing on the evening news and aren't hearing about from our government.

Outside?

[Tetsugaku-San]

There's a web outside the US? wait - There's an outside the US?

Hole in the Wall

[plimsoll]

This reminds me of Sugata Mitra's altruistic "Hole in the Wall" experiment; providing publicly-available ruggedized PC's embedded in protective enclosures for the intellectual arousal and enlightenment of street children.

• Image
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• Official site
• PBS Frontline story

Great...

[HarveyBirdman]

First thing I see is a diatribe against PDFs for not being good at something they aren't really intended for (open collaboration). If someone is using PDF format for an open and living document, they are an idiot, but that's not the PDF format's fault. Anyone who hates a format because it gets misused is not firing on all cylinders.

Pffft...

Re:Priorities

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Who came up with this 'digital divide' crap? I only associate this phrase with ludicrous schemes such as bringing the Internet to impoverished African states.

Call me old fashioned; but food, santitation, housing, education and social justice come first.

Who came up with this 'literacy divide' crap? I only associate this phrase with ludicrous schemes such as teaching kids impoverished African states to read.

Call me old fashioned; but food, santitation, housing, education and social justice come first.

um?

[Xargle]

"It's a long, wide-ranging conversation; clearly, this guy is thinking big about the power of the web, especially outside the United States"

In the context that reads very very wrong to someone from Europe. Please! Send us solar panels and laptops for our village so we can learn about your advanced American ways!

Well a large part of the problem

[Sycraft-fu]

Is that many people don't care to learn. They want computers to require zero knowledge, which isn't the case, and get angry and whine about "the digital divide" when it is required of them.

I do computer support for a living (to people with MSes and PhDs) and we provide plenty of educaiton. We are happy to explain why you should not infect your computer and how to avoid it. Thing is, many don't care to listen. They don't want to learn about it, they just want it to happen with no effort on their part.

Also where do you get this illetercay from? America is a very, very literate country. Even street bums generally have functional literacy (meaning the ability to read and write enough to get around in everyday life). Just because a highschool student isn't writing thesis papers on Chaucer does not mean they are illeterate, at least as it would pertain to using technology. There is a huge difference between literacy as in English skills sufficient for university and literacy as in English skills sufficient to read the newspaper.

For education to be effective it requires desire on the part of the learner. You can't force someone to learn if they do not wish to. Thus, to an extent, there will ALWAYS be a digital divide. People that don't wish to understand computers, won't.

It's just like cars. People would do well to have basic knowledge in servicing an automobile. You don't need to be a mechanic, but know how to diagnose simple problem and do something like replace sparkplugs. However, many don't, anything that goes wrong, their car goes to the mechanic. It's not that they can't learn, it's not that their aren't Haynes and Chilton books to teach them, it's that they don't desire to do so.

My experiance with Geekcorps

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have a Slashdot-account and I didn't want to create one just to say this, so sorry for the AC.

My experiance with Geekcorps is not such a good one. I first read about them a couple of years ago, I guess it was around 2000. I was very enthusiastic at this time and thought it was one of the best ideas ever, kind of like OSS applied not to software but to the real world. I had plenty of time before the start of university and I sent them my application because I wanted to volunteer to work for them about three months. Of course I can't judge for myself but I think I was qualified enough, having an excellent diploma, lots of experiance in building networks, GNU/Linux and programming, good references from companies like Vodafone and having a nice scholarship from Lucent.

Well, I didn't hear from them for a while and after a couple of weeks I decided to send a nice e-mail to ask. They almost immediately replied and sent me a rather rude e-mail where they wrote that I am not qualified. Well, they didn't even know about my qualifications because I never got the chance to tell them. They just had a very minimalistic web-interface where I could check several buttons. I really expected that after filling out this form somebody would get in touch with me to find out what kind of person I am, why I want to go to Africa to help, why I think I can do the job and stuff like this.

No, didn't happen. To me it looks like they really didn't want to bother and just were out to get their name in the newspapers in order to attract sponsors. I really hope that this impression is wrong and that they can achieve their goals because I still think that this is an outstanding idea. I am just not happy with the way they treated me and maybe other persons willing to support them.

most blogs and text within is "Ego Masturbation"

[zaqattack911]

All it took was a brief scan of Ethan's blog to remind me why I hate almost all "social commentary" blogs so much.

a) Mostly just some guy tooting his own horn, beating off to the fact that people read his dinky website.

b) It's boring... omg it's soo boring.

c) I (href link) don't(href link) like (href link) links (href link) embedded EVERYWHERE (href link) in a god damn paragraph I'm (href link) trying to read. Especially when they make a word like "zuchini" a link.. fuck!

Oh, and people who are going through genocide have better things to do than blog about their woes simply to entertain us western folks.

Love,
Zaq

Gutenberg - happening today @ e-speed

[rm3friskerFTN]

Over at the Belmont Club blog there is an essay describing how people right now here in the USA are "using the internet to combat censorship and corruption"

The essay (snippets below) also 'attempts' to utilize some Object Oriented lingo to describe what is going on (grin).

The undercard in the Kerry vs Swiftvets bout is Mainstream Media vs Kid Internet, two distinctly different fights, but both over information. The first is really the struggle over the way Vietnam will be remembered by posterity; ... But the undercard holds a fascination of its own. The reigning champion, the Mainstream Media, has been forced against all odds to accept the challenge of an [Internet] upstart over the coverage of the Swiftvets controversy.

"There are too many places for people to get information," O'Shea said. "I don't think newspapers can be the gatekeepers anymore -- to say this is wrong and we will ignore it. Now we have to say this is wrong, and here is why." [in other words the USA/European Mainstream Media has a problem with the internet no longer allowing them to control what geeks read & think]

The article is a candid and unconscious description of the actual nature of news. It is not just raw information or pixels pushed onto a screen, but a system of semantic entities: an series of information objects, containing properties and methods containing embedded logic, set loose on society. The power of the Mainstream Media lay in the fact that they controlled the generation of news objects; how they arose, what they did, how they ran their course. They were the news object foundry; able to make them "type safe"; define what they could do, and what they could not. And that power was enormous.

So when the Swiftvets story shouldered its way into the public consciousness despite the best efforts of the "gatekeepers" to consign it to oblivion, it posed an existential challenge to the news foundries. For where one could come, more would follow. The Mainstream Media responded to accusations by Swiftvets that Kerry had misrepresented his combat record in Vietnam by creating their own alternative news object, whose methods were restricted to OutrageAgainstBush( ) and SympathyForKerry( ), with read only properties Responsible and Respectable. They could no longer block the data, but they could still transform it.

Yet for good or ill, the genie is out of the bottle. Before the Gutenberg printing press men knew the contents of the Bible solely through the prism of the professional clergy, who could alone afford the expensively hand copied books and who exclusively interpreted it. But when technology made books widely available, men could read the sacred texts for themselves and form their own opinions. And the world was never the same again.